Microsoft 365 Community Power Platform, 20 Sep 2023

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From YouTube: Microsoft Power Platform community call – September 2023

Description

Microsoft Power Platform community call on September 20th 2023. Recap on news and updates from Microsoft, followed by demos by the community.

✨ Call included three demos:
• Norm Young – Managing Dynamics locked fields using Power Automate and Adaptive Cards in Microsoft Teams
• Mary Myers – Bring Chat GPT to your Enterprise Resource Planning with Power Automate
• Dian Taylor – Creating content with D365, PVA & Power Automate… A Digital Hat Trick!

Q&A takes place as always in chat throughout the call.

💻 Screenshot summary for this call | https://warner.digital/powerplatformsummary092023/

Please see the blog post for details on demos, project updates and activities.

👏 Host:
• David Warner (Microsoft) | @DavidWarnerII

📃 Agenda
00:00 Introduction
01:15 Request to present
02:15 Independent Publisher Connectors
03:15 Power Platform News
04:17 Power Platform Samples
04:55Power Platform AI Hack Together
06:25 Sharing is Caring
07:26 Community badges
08:21 Events
09:17 Picture time with Together Mode!
10:19 Norm Young – Managing Dynamics locked fields using Power Automate and Adaptive Cards in Microsoft Teams
35:25 Mary Myers – Bring Chat GPT to your Enterprise Resource Planning with Power Automate
50:55 Dian Taylor – Creating content with D365, PVA & Power Automate… A Digital Hat Trick!
57:50 Community Resources!

📝 Learn more
• Download invite for monthly Microsoft Power Platform call at: https://aka.ms/powerplatformcommunitycall
• Volunteer for a demo in these calls: https://aka.ms/community/request/demo
• Sharing is Caring initiative: https://aka.ms/sharing-is-caring
• Power Platform prompts: https://aka.ms/powerplatformprompts
• New Power Apps home page now generally available with expanded Copilot access: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/blog/new-power-apps-home-page-now-generally-available-with-expanded-copilot-access/
• August 2023 updates for modernization and theming in Power Apps: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/blog/august-2023-updates-for-modernization-and-theming-in-power-apps/
• Microsoft Power Automate Process Mining is generally available: https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-power-automate-process-mining-is-generally-available/
• Maker Copilot for Power Pages: revolutionize your web development experience: https://powerpages.microsoft.com/blog/maker-copilot-for-power-pages-revolutionize-your-web-development-experience/

💡 Learn more about the Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Community
• Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Unified Sample gallery - https://aka.ms/community/samples
• Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Community in YouTube - https://aka.ms/community/videos
• Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Community - http://aka.ms/community/home

Sharing is caring! You are awesome! 🧡

A

B

Everybody let's get up and move because we are live with the community and we are going to be dancing all through this amazing Community call today. So it is September 20th. This is the September Power Platform Community call. We are so excited to have amazing presenters and some fun content ready for you.

B

Let's take a look at what we're going to see today, so we're gonna have the latest updates and news on the Power Platform we're going to talk about some upcoming events in the community there's a little something coming up in the next couple weeks. We might all know about and be excited about.

B

We're gonna have our group picture time with together mode and then we're gonna have three All-Star presenters of the day, we're going to start with Norm young who's, going to cover managing Dynamics, locked Fields, using power, automate and adaptive cards in Microsoft teams, and then Mary Myers is going to cover bringing chat GPT to your enterprise, resource planning, with power automate, and we had a little slight change at the end here, Dion's coming in and she's going to cover creating content with d365, okay and power, automate, which is a digital hat trick, so get ready to throw those hats out on the ice.

B

So, let's first talk about an opportunity for you. This is your community call, so we absolutely welcome any and all of you to present, just like our amazing Community contributors are today now don't overthink it everybody. This is absolutely an easy opportunity and do not need to show how, to you know, make time travel possible with a flux capacitor. If you've got a favorite feature, you got a favorite sample that you want to show off. You got a cool tip trick or technique that you'd like to share with the community. All of that is A-Okay.

B

We invite you to fill out the form, aak dot, Ms, slash, Community, request, slash demo. We will reach out to you and, if you've never presented before, but you're really wanting to try. Let us know that too. We can buddy you up with someone in the community, whether it be an MVP, a member of the team member of Microsoft and you'll work on it together, presented together and it'll be fantastic, so please do not hesitate.

B

We welcome each and every one of you to show off the amazing passion that you have for the community all right. Well, let's get into some news, so we're going to start out with Jocelyn on an update for connectors.

C

Hello, everybody, uh so we are at as always more connectors now than we were at last month. We are now at over a thousand obviously, and we're now at 1065, with more connectors being made by independent Publishers community members, like you folks that have been made by Microsoft. Also for some of you folks who are going to be joining us at mppc in Vegas, we have another connectors related session. Super excited just got added last minute. This is going to be specifically from that admin and security Persona.

C

So how can you manage your Enterprise data at scale and effectively, while ensuring the safest environments possible? In case you guys, aren't going to be able to come to mppc No Worries whatsoever? The connector's last call will be holding a specific what you miss at mppc session the following week. So please go ahead and scan the QR code, where you can debrief with myself about everything you miss in the world of connectors, if you're interested in getting started, visit our GitHub link and feel free to connect with me. Thank you all.

B

Awesome, thank you Josh. Well, let's, uh let's tune in to some more news with April Dunham.

A

Yeah lots of news to cover here and update, so the powerapps home page is now generally available in every us environment with the expanded co-pilot access. So if you have a US environment, you have access to this new homepage to do all of your co-pilot awesomeness there. We also have some updates to modernization and theming inside of powerapps. So there's a brand new table control a modern table control, that's really cool and updates to the text and date. Picker control, also process, Mining and power. Automate is generally available as well.

A

So all of the process, modeling capabilities are GA, which is great, so you should go check that out and make your copilot for power pages are now live, so you have form generation, page creation, theme generation, it's all there. If you missed it, we did have Priya from the power Pages team demo, all of that co-pilot awesomeness for power pages on our hackathon session the other day. So you should definitely check that out for more information on that. But that's not all. We also have some new samples to cover too for the Power Platform repo.

A

So with that, we have a glass morphism sandbox from Keith Atherton, really cool sample there, showing how you can create kind of like a blur effect, with transparency using an html text, control inside a powerapps, so really cool sample to check out to kind of up your style game in your power apps there, and we also have a sample for SharePoint my tools from Alex Clark, which is kind of a proof of concept, powerapps solution.

A

That shows how you can embed powerapps inside of a SharePoint page as a web part, so really cool solution there to integrate and have a better together story with SharePoint and powerapps all right. But that's not all I briefly mentioned the hackathon earlier and how we had a great session the other day with Priya on the power Pages copilot capability, and we have more to come. The hack hackathon here, Power, Platform, AI hack together, is in full force it's going on until the 28th, so you still have plenty of time to register.

A

If you want to get involved, we have opportunities to win some great prizes like digital Badges and different Power, Platform swag t-shirts and socks and all that and gift cards. So it's a really fun event. You can hack by yourself. You can hack with a group of up to three people, have fun, learn about all these Power Platform, AI tools and co-pilots, and all that we have two sessions going on this week. So one actually immediately after this call.

A

So if you want to continue the fun you can learn how to get started with AI Builder and the Power Platform, with gomo from the Power Platform advocacy team and Ashish Bhatia who's going to show all the AI goodness that we have in AI Builder, and then we have one tomorrow as well, with Daniel laskowitz from the power performance team and Robin rosengrond who's going to show how you can integrate Azure open AI service with the Power Platform, to extend your Solutions and add even more AI capability into your Solutions.

A

So you can go to aka.ms4, slash hack together forward, slash Power Platform AI to get all the information about these sessions and how to join and how to register so make sure to register. If you want to be involved and we'd love to see what you're going to bring to the table for the hack.

B

Awesome stuff, thank you, April. That was a lot of cool information. We are so excited so plenty of time left for the hack everybody so get involved there. Now, if you're looking a little bit more long-term on those samples, if you want to get involved and understand how to use that Hub of gifts or get of hubs, what is that Hugo Bernier tell me more.

D

Hey we have this thing called sharing and scaring where we'll help you get started contributing to the community. So we have first time contributor session, where we show you how to do a GitHub pull request to uh documentation. We also have the Power Platform sample contributors, which is uh I, think it's on our calendar. If you go to AKA, then the mess sharing is caring.

D

He can sign up and you can actually learn how to submit a Power Platform sample that the same samples that April just covered, we also have a few sessions, called writing for the web. uh How to create documentation. Setting up your SharePoint framework, developer, workstation and more you can find out again at aka.ms. Sharing is caring with a bunch of dashes between this. This, the the words, um but that's not it once you've contributed to the samples something special happens. David you want to talk about that. Yeah.

B

Absolutely thank you Hugo. So we have our recognition program pumpkins. So we are excited because we got some new badges coming out. This is a recognition program set up to recognize you formally and officially, for all the amazing things that you're doing it's powered by credly. It is absolutely free to join. We cover all the costs with credly Badges and we got some exciting thematic things coming up like you see that pumpkin spice a lot of commits everybody's, getting all PSL crazy right now so go get your badge.

B

You can get it all the way from September through uh December and the Oktoberfest is coming up in uh October and then, of course, we've got some other fun badges coming up, we'll have our uh season of getting coming back and a number of other repos that are going to be opting in for some more badges. So it's absolutely free to get involved. Go register, AK, dot, Ms, slash, Community, slash recognition! Now uh do we got some events coming up?

B

We have the 365 educon coming up in Chicago at the end of October into November, so definitely check that out and I. Think there's a little something called The Power Platform conference coming up here in a couple weeks in October everybody hear about this.

A

B

Think we all heard about we are so excited. There is still time to register, though it is going to be epic, epic wait for it. Epic, so definitely go get registered for that. If you can, but that's not all we've got so many other amazing community events coming up absolutely go check. Some of these out, I put all the links in the chat for all of these events, you'll be able to check them out later uh on Community Days as well, so they should all be there. Ak.Mslash communities you want to get yours listed.

B

Absolutely no problem go. Do that as well. We want to make sure that all the amazing events and all of you that are putting on these events are able to amplify the events that you're putting on, because we appreciate it for all that you're doing so. The time has come picture time so come on and turn on. Those beautiful cameras of yours and I will set the together mode here to to get a mode, and we will get that moved over all right there. We go everybody's. Looking great, let me set up here.

B

We go move that off screen.

C

All right, David or matching.

B

We we we are yeah, look at so I got a sweater on he's, got a t-shirt on so.

D

B

Top on yeah somebody can get an orange tank top that'd be great. All right, I think we got a couple more seats. We got a feline in the room. Michael is looking very comfortable, fantastic, okay, all right everybody, let's wave to the community, show them how amazing you are. We got a bear up there. We are an inclusive community. We we invite.

B

Everybody awesome, looking fantastic great, to see everybody here today, all right, Coolio, Coolio, okay, let's get cracking on our amazing presenters, so we're going to begin with Norm on the topic: managing Dynamics, locked Fields, using power, automate and adaptive cards in Microsoft teams. Norm, you want to take over the screen and take it away.

E

Thank you so much David, it's great to be back. uh I, also say that it's also hard to uh coming behind you with the amount of energy that you bring to these calls. It's uh it's appreciated and I always learn something, and today what I learned is uh PSL, which I didn't even know was an acronym pumpkin spice life.

E

So thanks for sharing that. So uh what are we talking about here today? We're talking about managing locked fields and Dynamics, but this also makes sense out into dataverse and we're going to use power, automate and adaptive cards in uh in a possible solution or a different type of approach.

E

It's nice to be here again. My name is Norm young I'm, a Microsoft MVP out of Canada I'm kind of between Toronto and Niagara Falls. To give you a reference point, a senior strategic consultant at AV point when it comes to Tech I like dataverse I, like model driven apps I, also like Microsoft lists and SharePoint, and most things to do with power, automate and adaptive cards again nice to be here.

E

uh It's always great to come to these sessions, not just to hear the energy of David and all of the news updates from the different stakeholders and members, but to learn what other people are doing, to get validation of of the types of things that you work on as well in my own work.

E

So it's great to be here so thanks for taking the time to uh be in the call and have a listen to what we're doing uh what we're talking about, and so today we're talking about locked fields in Dynamics and model driven apps, and uh at my work we have a very manual process where a number of fields inside of uh inside of our Dynamics instance are locked and a user cannot change them without uh a manual request to get them changed. And so it's very time consuming.

E

And uh the question was posed to myself and others can be streamlined in the process. Without making significant changes inside of Dynamics and and the question was yes, we could. One of the approaches that we could take is to use power, automate and adaptive cards where we could give the users a mechanism to request a change for multiple fields in a table have an approval process, let them change the fields programmatically using power, automate and then notifications that can be passed around and enacted upon inside of Microsoft teams.

E

So to give a visual. These are what locked fields are in a in a Dynamics or a dataverse experience on the left image. You can see that I've highlighted number of employees and there's a little lock icon.

E

These are fields that the the particular user cannot edit. They can only view them on the right hand, side. You can see the technical implementation of that form in that field. You can see that it's been set to read only, and so in our case, you need that manager approval to make that change to the record, because it's it's key to the business function and changing those attributes can be uh contrary to some of the outcomes that we're doing. Technical implementation is just the form field in a model driven app is set to read.

E

Only so, let's start at the end, let's show what this experience looks like in a demo example. So we're going to start and the Persona that we're seeing on the screen is I'm. The user and I'm. In my model, driven app and I can see three locked Fields owner stage number of employees.

E

I can't change them, so the solution will have me going up into flow initiating the workflow from the user perspective, and then this in turn will send our first adaptive card to the user, and then they can see the account that we're talking about. They can see the current value and, more importantly, they can make the request to change them. So I can change the account stage to prospect.

E

I can change the number of employees to 6000, I can assign a new owner and I can put in some instructions for the person who will be approving or reviewing the request. There is a link in the adapted cart to come back to the record for convenience and then, finally, the request change button, which will send off and start that approval process I get a little confirmation when I've submitted an action on the cart, so let's switch personas now and that's become the manager or the person who's approving and we're dynamically.

E

Looking this up in the background, so I get the the title of the card. That tells me what we're looking at I get the information about. What we're talking about I can see the the current value and the proposed values, and then I have comments to understand any type of instructions that the user might have again. I have that quick link, that's being dynamically generated through the request using car?

E

Automated Expressions I can view that record I can enter in comments that I might want to provide back to the user and then finally, I have the ability to approve or recheck the request and when I do something like approved. It's kicking off all those other types of actions that you'd expect to see inside of power automate. So again, there's my transaction receipt.

E

If you will that something has happened and then I jump back as my user and I get the confirmation that it's been approved here are the new values that have been updated and if I want to click back into the record. I can confirm that those values are changed.

E

So in the the previous working scenario, this would have been emails, requesting approval, uh approving the approval or rejecting and then asking someone with the right permissions to make the change. So now this is happening and one more uh streamlined, almost seamless experience where we're removing some of those manual steps out of the way, and so what did that flow? Look like behind the scenes that gave us like that? End user experience, uh there's a lot of Expressions Dynamic data and, of course, the Adaptive cards.

E

But basically, what we're doing is we're going to get the change details from the user and capture the rationale for the changes we'll send all of those details over to the approval or the manager for the approval process. Then again, if, if it's approved, let's update those fields on behalf of the users and send a message saying it's approved if it's not approved just say sorry, this isn't going to work.

E

So we spend a lot of time, building up expressions and using Dynamic data to create those links of convenience for the users and then finally, we'll build out adaptive cards for user input manager, approvals and finally, the messaging. So uh the first card that we saw was to get the change details. This is the one that is uh sent to the user uh when they start that process you. You know first time you looked at this, we were like. Oh let's, let's have a flow for each field that might change, and it's like no wait.

E

That's just going to be too overwhelming for the user, so it's one flow and then they can add the different fields that they may or may not want to change and there's logic to check. All of that. But the first thing we need to provide context. We're talking about Microsoft teams. Teams can be overwhelming with the amount of messages that you get.

E

So it sounds so basic, but first point: what process are we asking our users to respond to give it a title: change locked Fields number two who are we talking about so I'll put the account name the table that it applies to the account and I'll give some context to that account like the account number, the owner, the status things that are important to my users for them to make sense of why they've been asked to look at this I'll show them the current values and then then they can set their proposed value, so they, you know, make sure that they're actually making the changes that they expect uh comments is so important because there's always edge cases.

E

Things are not always black and white in the real business world, so instructions to help the approver understand. Why and then. Finally, uh sorry, uh the view record, which is that uh link of convenience to go back to the account if they need to double check something and then finally start the approval by requesting the change. Our second adaptive card that we saw in the demo was to send those change details to the approver, and so the approver is always dynamically.

E

Looked up so I go to one of the user tables find out who the manager is send that request over there and again, the manager, just like the user, could be overwhelmed with messaging in teams. So what are we looking at we're? Looking at the change, lock, Fields request?

E

Who are we talking about the customer, the information showing them the before values and the after values give them as an approver opportunity to send instructions, feedback and so on to the user, with the view record, link that convenient link and then finally, the approve, then the redirect request and both of those buttons can take, will do take separate actions.

E

So inside of the flow, when the approver says you know reprove or eject, this is at a high level what happens in the yes Branch. We look at what changed in the account stage and then we make those changes same thing with the employees changed and the owner changed and there's there's different logic and conditions that apply. But finally, they get the message back saying: yes, it was approved and the values were changed and opposite it's denied and no changes were said so adaptive cards first time, I looked at an Adaptive card.

E

I couldn't believe uh that I would have been expected to write Json I I, don't really know what Json is to be quite Frank, I'm more of a maker I, don't have a background in development for me to to know and understand these things. So the Adaptive cards, dot IO designer site, which is what we see on the screen right now, makes it so much easier to have a a drag and drop experience where you can design draw a card and allow you to set properties on those different elements.

E

First time I got started, I used a sample and I just you know, tweak things to to suit my needs and then with a little bit of time and experience. I can now create them from a blank sample, but even as someone who's, not a developer, I'm still able to to create cards that are engaging for the users. They convey information and they're actionable and that's the important thing for the user experience.

E

One of the things that I want to impress upon you is that the Json may seem like a barrier if you had to read it, develop it write it so on, but the designer removes that barrier and as you're designing out your cards, inevitably you're going to want to add Dynamic data create a placeholder for that Dynamic data I use an ad symbol. You could use whatever you want, but don't let the progress of developing a card get hindered by your ability to uh know how or to to to put in the dynamic data.

E

So let's take a look at uh how building an Adaptive card can look and so we're looking at this uh the requester card and that's what we have on the screen right now. So, let's play the video- and this is you know, in full transparency. This is done at uh two times: speed, I'm, not the fastest.

E

Typist I'm not the fastest person with a mouse, but we're in the designer I've selected, my host app to be Microsoft teams, I've set the schema version and now I'm just going to start drawing. If you will dragging and dropping all of the different components to make a card that I think is engaging and conveys the right information and that will eventually have the ability to take action.

E

So you see, as I I drag over something like a text field I'm able to set properties I can make the size what I want, and it's all relative. It's not like exercises. It's not like font sizes. It's make it extra large change. The color make it an accent, color or a warning. Color like it's, it's it's it's stripped down functionality compared to what you're used to in like a a SharePoint or web designer, or something like that, and that's what makes them adaptive to these different platforms, whether it's teams, a bot or email.

E

You can write the code once and essentially move it around to other areas, and so here I'm doing something that I think is very important. I'm, creating a placeholder and in my example, I'm using an at symbol and then the account name and it's a placeholder, because I know that when I copy the the Json code from the designer and I move it into Power automate I need to update those items inside of power automate. You could do anything.

E

You want just I needed some visual reference for myself, and so my tip is uh use an ad symbol create that placeholder. So there's a lot a lot of formatting I'm trying to make it look pretty I've got an image like you know, created column sets now I'm, adding a fact set and the fact that it's just like you think it's just like a bulleted list of values, and so this is what's going to provide some of that context.

E

To my user, again, I'll put in an account number as a label, and then the ad symbol account number or uh the dynamic data that I'm going to need to replace when I come into power automate and the power automate piece I think is probably harder than developing adaptive card keys.

E

I feel pretty comfortable in power automate and spend about a lot of my time in there, but when it comes to updating those values uh that are in the Json code in power automate, it's not the most user friendly experience, so these placeholders really help, and so uh here we are we're laying out the card. Now I've got the contextual information about the account the account number the owner, says and so on, and so now I'm creating inputs.

E

And now we have to do things like, including an ID for the input so I'm doing an account stage. I gave it a name and now you'll see that I'm going to start populating choices. Current is one I'll go to the next one, and so in that drop down menu box that we saw at the first demo. We have to manually put in each value that might be there. Those values in turn match, what's inside, of the account stage account record, and then you have to do that manually. There's there's no connecting an Adaptive card.

E

Do that that that dataverse record that that I'm, aware of so you can't dynamically, look up these types of choice, values you have to program them in and then you have to account for what the user selects in the Adaptive cards uh to what's in data versus inside of your power automate routine and we'll see that as well.

E

So we've got that input uh now we're putting in the number of employees I'm using colors to differentiate like a current value versus a uh an input value I'll put in an uh a text box I will give instructions to the user I'm trying to have a training list. Experience I've done a number of these, but I still make mistakes and have to go back, and you probably may have seen one right there.

E

I had to go back and update the drop down menu box, give the right instructions and now I uh making sure everything's right again. You do this all the time and uh you're not immune to making uh user errors, and that's what's happening here, but we'll get past this. This is not a big deal.

E

I'll set the I'll provide a section for the owner, I'll format it the way I want I'll put in that text box for input, one of the things that's kind of a you know it's too bad about uh adaptive cards, but I'm, not sure I'm, not aware of any way where I can have email, validation or a person look up like we might have inside of a dataverse Dynamics or like a SharePoint list where it can resolve that name. There's no connection to that uh that technology, that that does that validation.

E

So this is one of the the drawbacks to the solution. Is that if it's not an email address, and it's not the right email address, I have no way of validating that at the point of uh user input inside of the Adaptive card, and if someone knows a way to do that, please let me know in the chat, because I'm always looking to improve these things so, finally we're putting in our last little section this be the user comments.

E

You see that I'm putting those IDs in uh it doesn't seem that important right now, but it will when we we go into preview mode, and so we've got all of that.

E

Now we need some buttons, so I'll find the right section to highlight We'll, add an action, we'll have an open, URL and then we'll put in our link to the record, update that and then the next one, then the next one's the most important one for any type of approval or action, where you're going to take that feedback and use it inside of power automate and that's a submit button, and when you do the submit button, what it's going to do is send data back to the calling application.

E

So you'll see that I'm manually typing in some data now that'll get returned so I'm doing something called the user action I just made that up and that I've updated. So it looks good uh I. Think at this point, we'll put it into preview mode. I can see all of my values uh in the the drop down menu list. I can put in a number of employees.

E

I can put in a new owner, I can add comments and then, if I click, the view record button, it'll say what it would do and then here's the important part. This is the data that gets sent back and it's the data that gets sent back, that's most important when we get inside of our flow okay. So that was kind of the easy part, even though it might be new for a lot of us.

E

The hard part now is to take that Json code and it's significant and put it into our power automate, so I'm going to copy the payload I'm going to come into my flow and I'm just going to add another adaptive card action. So in this case I'm using teams posted adaptive card and wait for a response. It's very much like an approval.

E

D

E

Have the ability to send it as the flow bot so think of a one-on-one chat? You could put it in a channel think of a conversation and so here's the part where I'm like I could never write. All this look at you, you didn't have to know what was in there and all that code.

E

You just needed to know that the scroll bar was this big, because there's this much stuff and it's great, if you can read and write that, but not all makers or citizen developers or business technologists, can so what I'm doing now is I'm.

E

Remember those placeholders where I said like use that at symbol and now I'm going through and I'm binding all of those instances where I need to change from a static value to a dynamic value, and this is the power of power automate where I can get all of that data that I've retrieved and start using it inside of this adaptive card, but you'll notice, you can almost get dizzy from scrolling up scrolling down scrolling up scrolling down. There's not an easy way of doing this.

E

I'll use things like Expressions to move that through so I'm just going to scroll ahead, because again it can be a very dizzying exercise to see me scrolling up and down the hard work. Is it's not in the Adaptive card development? It is.

E

You know knowing and getting the right data to plug into your card and having those placeholders and that list of things that you're going to include for contextual data is so important, so I'm putting in my final URL to go back to the card and then I'll have a final call out to my user, who uh is going to receive the card and we go from there. So I'll just scrolled through that piece, no errors, but that's the hard part. It's like wiring it all up.

E

Okay, uh getting close on time. uh Let's look at some of the key actions to understand. What's required in doing all of this. uh Look at this list Rose for account. Here's another thing that I would never know how to write so I use tools like fetch, XML Builder, to help build out those queries. I can build a query in that tool and then copy in all those parameters to make it easy for me to do that.

E

I use things like dynamically building that link over to Dynamics I use that list Rose model driven, apps and I. Take that data and I can dynamically build out a link to that particular record, and it was hard to build the first line, but it saves my users so much work and time having to log into Dynamics find the record. Remember all the things that they need to now.

E

I can just they press the button and go excuse me I need to zoom back, because that was a very important piece and I wasn't talking fast enough. You'll see that on this compose action, I'm getting the feedback from the Adaptive card. So when someone is requested an act of get requested, the change the feedback has to be captured, comes back.

E

You don't get a dynamic output from from the Adaptive card action and team, so you have to capture compose it to whatever and now I'm going through and I'm requesting those changes, uh I'm almost done David. So uh uh we're almost there and so now I'm going to capture that data, and you can see it again.

E

It's the body data that comes from it and it's all of that uh data that gets sent back uh from clicking that button that we saw in the Adaptive cards designer so now, I'm evaluating the changes inside of the account stage, and you remember I, said that each choice in the choice column had to be manually evaluated. This is what we're seeing here.

E

So in the case where the value equals passed, update the row set it to past things like that.

E

Almost there you can scroll through some of this will evaluate if the employees change will make the necessary change there, we'll evaluate if the owner change will make the changes there and then. Finally, if everything is gone, well, uh free of error and so on, we will send that final notification back to the user to say: hey your changes have been approved and you're good to go.

E

If it was rejected, we send them a message back and then hopefully the approver has put in some meaningful content comments for them to understand why it was rejected and that's the flow not the most straightforward one for a new maker, but it's one that I think people with patients can build up to help their users simplify some of their processes. So my call to action to you is uh I know most people on this call are very capable with technology, but the the users that they they support that that they represent.

E

They may not know that these things are possible, so uh my call to action to you is to help your users uh find those manual and mundane tasks and try and automate them using things like power, automate, consider using adaptive cards or those situations where you can't have those user dialogues inside of an application.

E

You have things like uh learning about adaptive cards on the learn site. We have samples that are amazing to use the designer, which we looked at briefly really good, and you know it's never too late to learn more about power, automate and again the samples, the samples, the samples see what other people have done, learn what from others. More importantly validate some of the work that you've done.

E

Thank you all so much for uh taking time today to uh listen to my spiel, about uh Power automate adaptive cards and how they can be used to manage locked Fields. If you want to keep the conversation going, let's uh hook up on my website or uh LinkedIn or Twitter X, whatever you were calling it nowadays and David. Thank.

B

E

B

You Norm really great stuff. There I know there's a lot of information we packed into that. So really really appreciate it um in the interest of time we're going to move on to Mary Mary. If you want to take on over uh she's going to cover bringing chat GPT to your enterprise, resource planning, with power automate.

B

F

Can see there we go, we.

B

F

Yeah I was trying to say hello, yeah thanks everyone when um great sessions there Norm So today we're going to talk about chat GPT for your enterprise, resource planning and that'll make a little bit more sense as we get going here. So, first and foremost, let's talk about what we're going to talk about so.

A

F

My little thing here: okay, first, our agenda: this is what we're going to talk about today, we're going to first talk about what it's like to create a custom connector for chat, GPT inside of power automate right. So that would be you know using that as a connector. So if we're familiar with power automate, that means we can take data, essentially a prompt right, create some type of in an app or in a flow.

F

um You know some type of response that we then want to run through like a traditional chat GPT, so you can create a custom connector for that um we're going to look at how to use that in a flow and then we're also going to briefly talk about um Azure, open eye AI, but I do have another like site modification that I found out prior to this um session and we're also going to take a look at um the new Power automate connector inside of chat, GPT right, so I think that'll be a super cool demo that we will get here too quickly.

F

So um for any of those that don't know me, my name is Mary Myers I'm, so excited to be here today. Thanks for having me, I got started in the tech space, not that terribly long ago, in 2018. Prior to that, I was like a super end juicer in FNL, which is one of my Erp or enterprise resource planning.

F

Experience comes from, um and so I've got um my my background comes from like that Dynamic side of things, but then became super obsessed with the Power Platform after going through an app in the day um scenario and realized how much we could do to automate and integrate our processes with Dynamics. So that's what I became super obsessed with and then I'm also a Microsoft MVP and then over the course of the years right.

F

I went kind of from like this app and a day to now, I um run my own company creating apps and solutions all day long, so I have a lot of fun. That's what I say, basically all right, okay. So this is what we're going to talk about today. So, first, let's discuss what it would mean to create a custom connector for chat, GPT inside of power automate. Let's talk about why right? So what does that mean?

F

First, um the reason we need to do that is, if you excuse me, go and search for your list of connectors inside of power, automate you're not going to see a chat GPT one there right. That means that we have to create a custom connector for it, so that we can use it inside of power automate.

F

There are a couple of things that we need to go ahead and have established first. So the first thing is is that you need to have um like the 20 count, so you have to have an upgraded chat, GPT account, and then you also need to have this uh developer account. So if you go to this platform, account and I just threw like 20 bucks.

F

um You just have to have some type of like credit on that account as well right, because whenever you use the API calls, unfortunately I will say like they are not free. There is a very small charge for them, um depending on kind of what application you put them in. But for me when I'm testing like I, don't know I've not had very much usage on it.

F

So it's not that much, but you do have to have some of you know some of those requirements set up ahead of time so that essentially you can get your API ready for use to create a custom connector inside of this I'm. Sorry inside of power automate. So these are the requirements that you start with.

F

Then um I think this is probably part of what April was talking about. Is that there's this new screen um for power apps, because then I jump over to make.powerapps.com and so that I can create my custom connector inside it? There and I couldn't find it at first. So it was like I, don't know where the connectors they're, not where I'm used to them being and then I went.

F

There's like this show all so when you go to show all you're going to see this new application and then you're gonna see custom connectors um to have a little yeah. Then I'm going to see custom connectors. You know right in here and then I went ahead and like pinned this to my dashboard as well in power, automate and Empower apps, so that now I don't have to like always go to the screen to search for my custom connectors. So that's where you'll, you will start out with to start to create your flow I'm.

F

Sorry, your custom, connector and then, let's see um I, wonder if I can all right so we're gonna we're gonna walk through these are the screens and I've got some links and I. Think David's gonna share them um because I won't say that this is it's not the hardest thing, but it's also not the simplest thing, and it's definitely not something that we can walk through in like a super simple time.

F

So I'm gonna get high level talk about this, but there is some super great documents um online and some links that we're going to drop here for y'all to use and then, if you've not checked out, Anders um Jensen, Jensen I'm, not sure if I'm butchering his last name but he's phenomenal and he's got a really really great. Youtube video that gives some good documentation that'll help you create this chat, GPT, custom connector as well, but basically the first step whenever you're, creating a custom connector is to what I'll call brandit right.

F

So what did I do? I went on mine, um I, Google, chatgpt, icon, white right and then I put that on there and then you can see. I've got like this little hex code, and so this is. This is the little icon that I have here. Then we have to put our host URL down here as well, and that will be um listed on the documents in the links as well, but I think it's what I have here.

F

It's open and yeah open, ai.com, https platform.openai.com, and so that's what we put in the first screen there right, that's just kind of getting it ready getting it branded is what I like to call it.

F

The Next Step, whenever you're, creating a custom connector, is to add authentication right. So if you're not familiar with authentication, that's like what are your credentials. What are the username, your credentials, that you need to be able to use this API key? And that's just the same thing like if you're, using like dataverse or business Central or anything else right, you need to have a username credentials and that has some Associated security stuff on it. So the chat, GPT API right has a security set up on it as well.

F

So we have to indicate that um that it's an API key here like we have listed and then we're also going to identify where we're going to have that authentication or that API key listed, which will be in the header there. So then, after I created that now we're ready to like create the What's called the definition of the API.

F

What's the definition, so if you're familiar to postman right, a definition would be like if I'm going to post an API, if I'm going to post I'm going to update I'm going to create write any of those types of things where I'm going to pass in some parameters right when I put in the customer name, but first I have that, like Json body right that you're having to work with that's the definition right. So if that's you know your familiarity, set!

F

Think of that, as the definition right, that's what you're going to put in there because you're going to say: oh this API can post. Let me put it in a pretty wrapper. That's all the definition is there now. Let's say your experience isn't right from from that perspective, um and you are just a straight maker from Power automate. A definition is just going to be those actions that you can can do inside of power automate so SharePoint right.

F

That's a nice, easy connector that we're all you know familiar with when you say you know create item, and it gives you those different fields that are available for whatever you're going to create an item. That is a definition right. So so it's nothing to be scared about I! Think a lot of times. People are like oh Custom, Custom, connector, custom. This and you know to Norm's point right. If we just have like a little patience and a little gumption and say: okay, it's really not that bad right!

F

It's just this is this is how we make the things relevant to what we already know, because I'm telling you that this skill set is nothing that anyone here can actually do it's just how do I? How do I know the name for this? So that's all a definition is so you will set up that definition.

F

You hit this import sequence here and it asks you um what the URL is and then a lot of times when you go to the uh platform open, API, documentation, um references there, sorry I'm, looking at my API over here, but I get so tongue-tied um over there. This link that we're going.

A

F

With you, whenever you go there, it gives you like the Json um documentation right. So you just copy and paste that you just have like this little header request that you throw in there and and you set that up, so you set up your definition, so you simply branded it. Then we said our security for it. Then we created our definition and then the last thing oops redo is we go back to grab our bye? Okay is we have this?

F

Is we're going to test it right, so we're doing all that now we're going to test it and you're gonna, add first you're going to add a connection to it. So you'll add like this new connection um and then it will do like those normal credential logins right that you're used to seeing like with every other connector, that you have right, some type of username and password for that.

F

So that's what it's going to ask you for there, except there you will enter your API key that you get from chat, GPT right, you go in there and you set up your um icon developer account um and basically right, it's kind of common. If you're used to using these other external apis that usually have an extra, they usually have some type of developer site. Where you go and you you get an API key, that's associated for your user account and then that's what you put in there. So you have these credentials.

F

So then you test that and then your flow is ready to go now. You've now you've created this connector right and so, like I said. I know that that's a lot, but there's a Anders Jensen crates. This, like has this video I, think the whole video is 12 minutes. Long, he's more efficient than I am as far as explaining and so I highly recommend. You check that out. If you want to create a little custom connector there.

F

Now what I decided I was like cool I, definitely want to use this in a flow and because I am what I will call an Erp junkie right, like I, just love to automate these processes. So I was like cool I, wanted to take some of my business Central data and run it through chat GPT and have it do like some forecasting, analysis and I was like that's gonna, be so I'm so excited to do this, and so I spent all this time.

F

um You know I spent, probably like 30 45 minutes, creating my little custom connector and then I was like ready to go and I was like wait well, first I'm saying I was like wait, there's an issue with this, because this is what we call something like responsible.

F

You know Ai, and it realized that in my business case scenario for my for this connector like how I would normally use it, I didn't want to send what I will call private or or Erp data through chat GPT, which is this open, AI Source right because then, like let's say for me, it's just test data. Like let's say this was like.

F

Maybe one of my customers, like super super private hot, like customer list, that they don't want anyone to get right and I'm now like saying, okay, take all of their customer financial data and let's throw that out into the internet and I was like that's, that's not a good idea. That's a terrible idea! Actually so I had to then actually reshift the way that I was going to use this for my Erp scenario, so I say: chat GPT for Erp honestly, with like this asterisk in some in some warning.

F

Labels and I realized that after I was like done. How excited going down the lane there.

F

um So what I decided to do instead was use chat GPT when I was like okay well, I know that one of the things that my you know, customers often have issues with is like how do I do this in business Central like I, don't I, don't remember right how do I post a journal? How do I, you know, reverse a payment right like that type of same scenario, like we kind of forget so I was like okay. Let me just see a safe way, because all of that documentation is is freely available online right.

F

That's our learn, documentation, there's tons of blogs! There's tons of you know what I'll call external facing, not customer client. You know credential information um that I can have it go out there and get so I. I kind of put this this like little screen inside business Central. That said, okay I can ask you know my chat, GPT information from from here from inside business, Central and then post that to Like A team's message.

F

So that was the route that I ended up kind of deciding to to go upon so that we could be what I would call like responsibly safe with AI, and this results back to kind of the scenario that we call you know just because you can doesn't mean that you should could I have taken this instead of just putting some technical question. Could I have ran my customer data. You know through here and essentially ran you know an entire table. That would be the same as like saying: okay, I've got this table.

F

I could copy and paste that table put it right into chat, GPT right and say: do magic. Tell me something right and it would, but then I would expose all of that data. So this is like I said a scenario where I say just because you can doesn't mean you I'm not sharing my stream anymore, but I've never been sharing my screen no.

B

Usually I think something something happened, but we are rapping into the to the next demo time if you are able to.

F

Yeah we'll go ahead and just stop it. There then um yep we're good to go.

B

Yeah awesome thank you, Mary and and by the way everybody Mary was getting all this set up and the demo demons crashed into her house last night and uh some of her demo was not working perfectly, so she backed up to uh slides and it was fantastic. So thank you, Mary for being a trooper and still uh charging through that. You rock, really appreciate it. Okay, so DIA John Taylor has jumped in for us today to provide a demo on creating content with d365, PVA and automate the digital hat trick. Take it away, you're, muted,.

G

B

Go that would help there we go there. You go.

G

Yeah and I'm sorry Mary I wanted to be ready to start sharing, but then unfortunately, I hit the wrong button. So I didn't mean to do that. I apologize.

G

So anyways today, I'm going to show you some very interesting content using Dynamics 365 power, virtual agents and power automate so I'm going to get right into it. Just want to introduce myself real quick for you, guys who don't know me yet. My name is Dion Taylor I'm. Actually a director excuse me here in pre-sales, at RSM I'm. Also a LinkedIn learning author I have about four courses, I think out there right now and you can follow me on all the links that I have posted on here and I'm, always I'm, always I'm.

G

Also a Microsoft MVP as well, so I'm gonna jump right in because we don't have that much time left right. This is what we're going to be talking about using power, virtual agents and customer service and power automate. All combined and I want to talk a little bit about the scenario.

G

What we're going to do is I'm going to show you how a customer can initiate a chat right with power, virtual agents and then following some prompts answering some questions from PVA and then VA is actually going to automatically create that case in Dynamics 365 customer service.

G

Now just to kind of show you here uh what I've set up here, I actually have on the screen. As you can see here, a custom category and subcategory field, those are actually tied to a table. The way that this works is, we can select a category and then the subcategory options that are going to be available when agents are creating. These cases depend on what is actually entered in that category field.

G

So, as you can see here right, this is my drop down value table right where I have a product issue and then below here you see all of those subcategories. So that's how it works and I kind of wanted to tell you about that, because otherwise the whole thing I'm going to show you is not going to make sense.

G

So, let's go into the scenario here so I'm going to have a customer right that init initiates the chat with power, virtual agents, then power virtual agents is actually going to use power, our automates to get that list of categories right.

G

It's going to feed that back to Power Virtual agents and then PVA is going to request some additional details from the customer, like their email address, the category that they want to pick and a case title, then the answers are going to go from Power automate to power, virtual or sorry from Power Virtual agent, the other way around two power automates and it's going to check based on the email address if this is actually an existing customer.

G

If that is the case, we're going to use power automate to find a customer if that's not the case, we're going to create a customer and after that we're going to create a case Associated to the customer inside of Dynamics 365 for customer service. All right, very quick explanation.

G

Let me now show you how this works, so here I am in power, virtual agents and I'm sure you know that you can actually have this little chat widget it here on a website right and then people can start that chat directly from here I'm going to show you this from inside of power virtual agents, so you can kind of follow along with what is happening here right.

G

This is my topic here on the side, so I'm going to say, drop down, so I'm actually going to drop, not dog drop down, so I'm actually going to be going to this particular topic, and you should see that in a second, hopefully, it's been sitting here for there you go so it's telling me. Let me get your options and what that's going to do is write. What I said is going to query for those categories, so my email address I actually have an email address. That is actually a a person inside there.

G

We go a contact inside of my Dynamics 365 system and I'm going to say uh this is this: is is a test there we go and what is it going to do now? It's actually going to now pull in those drop down values using power automate. So these are all of the options that I have in there and by the way, since it is a table, if we are disabling or deactivating, I should say any of those right options in that table.

G

uh Power automate will not pull them in so that's kind of nice as well I'm going to say these are shipping issues. What it's going to do now is it's going to grab that shipping issues, options or not option set table right that value, and it's going to give me the related, subcategories and again right. These are all related to the shipping issues category. So now I'm going to say, okay, there was damage during my shipments. Let's see what else it needs from me. I think we should be okay here.

G

Let's just go ahead and give this a second: it's now utilizing again kicking off our automate to create that case inside of Dynamics 365 and then what it should do there. We go. It's giving me this nice adaptive card and it's telling me right what is the category subcategory and the case has been created so now, if we go here to my cases, inside of Dynamics, 365 I actually have a view that shows cases that were created today. Look at that what it did is it actually found Avery.

G

It saw that it's Avery is related to an account put that in a customer field and look at that. It has my category and it has my subcategory as well and then, of course, there's. If there's other data that we need to populate, we can do that as well.

G

And that is all that I had I know. It was really quick, but I kind of wanted to make sure to give David a couple of minutes to close as well so again feel free to follow me. Take a look at my uh my website or my YouTube, or connect with me on LinkedIn and thanks again, everybody.

B

Awesome Dion very right that was like lightning, fast I, think you, uh you earned an award uh for Speed there, so excellent job and and still showed all the value to it. So thank you very, very much all right. Everyone. Well, thank you to all of our presenters. For the day. uh We really appreciate everybody stepping up. We know that there is some hurdles today, but everybody got through it and we really appreciate you all: bringing the energy and bringing uh the uh passion to our community. We've got some resources for you.

B

So if you've got any questions for our presenter today, we absolutely welcome you to talk to them. In fact, we've made it easy all. You need to do go to any one of these URLs I will put them in the chat afterwards, but our community conversations forums are alive and well, uh even if you just go, let them know you appreciated what they presented on today. That is a contribution everybody. It is not Hardware or it's not easy work.

B

I should say uh to always present on these calls, and sometimes things come up like happened with uh Mary and Dion stepped in the last minute. So we really appreciate just go say thank you. That is a way to contribute uh and give back to the community. So please definitely do that. We've got some other resources available for you as well.

B

Our community front door, uh as well as our videos and samples, our PowerApp Community, automate, Pages power, virtual agents, where you can go chat with other like-minded individuals in the community and ask questions and get answers so definitely take advantage of those. And of course, we've got more Community calls for you and that's a mistake. The uh call is back from summer break for the M365 Power Platform I did not notice that, but we will get it fixed. It is back.

B

Every Tuesday we've got Microsoft presenters, showing you the amazing things that are being done within our organization. That you'll be able to take advantage of. Then we've got our monthly Power Platform call, which you are on now office add-ins and along with our bi-weekly M365 and Power Platform, Community, Development call and Viva connections and SharePoint framework. You get access to all of these at AK dot, Ms, slash, Community, slash calls so definitely go get. Those invites added to your calendar so that you can be part of all of them.

B

They all all worth it I promise. Now we've also got an opportunity for you to collaborate with other cool kids in the community that are on Discord. This is something we've set up for the community that you can come in and kind of have a One-Stop shop to see all of the different things that we're doing a lot chat with other like-minded individuals as well and get involved there.

B

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B

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B

Youtube will let you know as soon as it's available and or you can follow us on X, the artist formerly known as Twitter for updates at M365 PNP, and you can also see all that we've got at ak.ms, Community Li. We look forward to the next Community call I'm sure it's after the conference, so we'll have plenty of cool things. To show off. Definitely go get that on your calendar. If it's not already October 18th, we look forward to everything that you guys are bringing to the community. So we really appreciate it.

B

Please have a great rest of your day, a wonderful rest of your week and we'll see you in the community foreign.